Why the Avalanche can't be satisfied with moral victories any longer

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Seventeen games left. Seventeen games to outpace either the Minnesota Wild or the Dallas Stars by better than two points. Seventeen games to show the hockey world that, no, the 2018-19 version of the Colorado Avalanche didn’t backslide from a previous year of serious progress. Seventeen games to go.

The last game of the year will be here too. Uh-oh.

The Avs have skated away from the SAP Center ice losers in 17 of the last 18 games (1-12-5), including Friday’s cruel 4-3 loss. It followed the same script from every other game here: slow start, try-hard comeback, some out-of-your-seat near scoring chances near the end, but when all was said and done:

Just another loss to the Sharks in San Jose.

The real question remains: Does this team have enough hunger and will to get back into the playoffs? Or, is everybody just kind of waiting for next year, when Cale Makar and maybe Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko come here?

We will see, starting with Sunday’s likely must-win game in Anaheim.

“That’s the position we’re in: we’ve got to win,” captain Gabe Landeskog told BSN Denver after this loss. “We don’t really have time to hang our heads. We’re gonna take the positives from this, learn from the other stuff and move on.”

As Jared Bednar correctly observed, his team just wasn’t good enough tonight. Sure, the third period was a classic near-comeback against a team that probably sat back too much after taking a 3-1 lead, and sure, Carl Soderberg looked like he might tie it up with about 20 seconds left on a one-timer from the slot. But Soderberg’s own teammate, J.T. Compher, blocked the shot and that was that.

Otherwise, the Avs had too many passes that didn’t connect, too many turnovers at their own blue line or in the neutral zone and just not quite good enough goaltending from their best player otherwise of late, Semyon Varlamov.

“We didn’t do enough in the first 40 minutes to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “It just boils down to that. That’s why we were down 3-1.”

Mikko Rantanen – who is playing hurt right now with a lower-body ailment – cut it to 3-2, the Avs fell behind by two again on a power-play Sharks goal and Sam Girard made it 4-3 with a beauty of a spin-o-rama and shot past Martin Jones.

The Avs stormed Jones a couple of times near the end, but alas, alas, alas.

“Gave up a PP goal late and we weren’t able to tie it up. First goal (against), we blow coverage off a faceoff, second goal deflected off my stick and third goal, three minute and 30 second shift,” Erik Johnson told BSN Denver. “That’s what it was.”

Yeah, about that third goal: The Avs were entirely hemmed in their own zone for an extended time, more than three minutes, before finally yielding the net with under a minute left, a killer goal that made it 3-1. The NHL instituted a new rule this year: No calling timeouts after you ice the puck. Bednar would have called timeout under the old ways of the rulebook, but he couldn’t this time and a worn-out Avs five-some just finally were done in by a dogged Sharks attack.

In that sense, that was the epitaph to this one. The Sharks just worked harder more often than the Avs and deserved the win. The Avs have to muster true desperation soon if they are to make a playoff push. They just can’t come out like it’s a chess match in the beginning of games anymore, trading moves and being too passive. They have to play like they are down by two goals all the time – even when they aren’t.

Or else, it’ll be wait ’til next year.

OTHER THOUGHTS, OBSERVATIONS, NOTES

• Bednar wasn’t happy with the the play of at least one or two defensemen, and it’s probably not too hard to figure out who they were. Erik Johnson didn’t have it at all in this one, which probably explains his sour demeanor after the game (not that he was disrespectful to me or anyone else. He was just sour). Johnson had real bad puck-possession numbers and he was a minus-3. Bednar said he may put Ryan Graves back in the lineup Sunday in Anaheim. Almost certainly, Johnson won’t be the one who sits, but it could be someone like Patrik Nemeth or maybe even Ian Cole, who battled hard in this one and had an assist, but who struggled at times keeping up with the pace in his first game in nearly three weeks.
• Bednar can’t be happy with the play of some of his forwards lately, either. Colin Wilson played a second straight game following another stint on the injured list, and he was just bad in this one. His Corsi for: 2, Corsi again: 15. No shots, no offense whatsoever in more than 11 minutes of ice.
• The Avs just had a real hard time with the line of Timo Meier, Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski all night.
• Nathan MacKinnon had a rough night. He took seven shot attempts, but only two found their way on net and his play with the puck was spotty at times, including a turnover on a back pass near his own blue line midway through the third period that led to an odd-man rush and Girard had to take a desperation tripping penalty. The Sharks scored on the ensuing power play, with Pavelski netting the game-winner.
• Varlamov no doubt would like to get a couple of shots back, including the long wrist shot from Meier in the second period that beat him, which made it 2-0. Varly just wasn’t good enough, like the rest of his team.
• It certainly wasn’t Landeskog’s fault in this one. He had three assists.
• It’ll be interesting to see if Bednar goes with Philipp Grubauer Sunday in Anaheim. My hunch is he will.
• The Avs’ last victory in this building: Dec. 28, 2015.